“You called me the lucky one / before the wind blew you away,” Caroline Sallee of the indie folk project Caroline Says sings on her new album of the same name, The Lucky One. They are twelve intricately crafted songs that deal with the mystery of how time past lives on in us. Loved ones dying: “where the soul meets the tide of the blood / always running just to get back to where it was.” Reunions with old friends: “and how I keep you in my head just dies when I see you.” The joyous but tentative memories of youth: “who remembers it best and who remembers it right / to feel alive like we do.”

There are touches of Phoebe Bridgers’ emotional grasping for the perfect heart-ache melody; there are touches of Hand Habits’ folky menageries; but there is a bit more of a country influence to the Alabama native’s work. The beauty of the album is in the rich and nuanced stories—stories about a “Palm Reader,” a prize winning horse (“Roses”), getting “loaded” with friends (“Something God”)—couched in songs with wonderfully layered vocals, catchy and clever instrumentation, and an ephemeral quality to match the inexplicable nature of memory.

“I always dream I’m running, disappearing my whole life / mumbling last doubts shining just like eyes in the night,” is how she puts it on the rhythm-rich song of the same name. There are electronic beats and acoustic drums, staccato string pads and pulsing bass, harp-like guitars and arpeggiated synths, all complementing each other. Perhaps my favorite sonic flavoring is on the song “Daze,” a flute and piano duet that dances like a magical wind. Caroline is an adept poet, and on that tune she cleverly rhymes “conversation” with “while mine are racing” and “hard to face ‘em.”

Though there is a cleverness to the record, it is not an exercise so much in showcasing her abilities as it is digging deep into the real nature of life as she sees it, the way that we process our past and how that affects how we live in the present time. “Always unbelieving / pressed against the past in this world of glass.” There are pitfalls to getting caught up in the past, for sure, but in a world where time marches ever forward, where we lose the ones we love, where we must learn from our past mistakes and draw inspiration from our past relationships, it is a noble and tricky exercise to try and capture it like something “buzzing around and I can’t ever trap it / in the cell of my palm.” It is a beautiful record that could soundtrack a lazy Sunday morning, or that takes on the life of the book you might read on the couch on your coveted day off, with a deeper listen.

Pre-order The Lucky One by Caroline Says HERE